Jailed Cuban Refugees At Impasse

October 18, 1986|United Press International

ATLANTA -- A five-year struggle to get freedom -- or at least court hearings -- for 1,813 Cuban refugees being held in the Atlanta federal prison until they can be returned home is over, their attorney said Friday.

Lawyer Bill Thompson tried to persuade the Supreme Court to hear the Cubans` claims that they should be granted asylum in the United States and that they should have some constitutional rights to due process.

But the high court decided this week not to hear his last plea in the Cubans` defense, leaving their fates to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

``It is certainly depressing,`` Thompson said. ``It`s frustrating in a case that`s gone on five years. Given things looked so optimistic two years ago, to now face the prospect that nothing is left, that there is no recourse in the legal system for these prisoners, is an incredibly depressing thought.``

The government calls the Cubans ``detainees.`` They arrived in America in 1980 as part of the Freedom Flotilla, a boatlift of 125,000 Cubans from Mariel harbor in Cuba to the United States.

Most of the 125,000 refugees were absorbed into society. But the men in the prison -- where 10 Cubans have been killed and another eight have committed suicide -- either broke American law, thus ending their right to stay in the country, or were put into jail immediately upon landing because the government believed they had broken Cuban law.

The people accused or convicted of breaking the law cannot, under INS regulations, stay in America. But Cuban President Fidel Castro refuses to allow them to return home.

Thompson tried to argue that the Cubans should be allowed to stay in America because they would be persecuted if they returned home. The Supreme Court refused to hear those arguments earlier this year.

The court refused Tuesday to hear Thompson`s arguments that the Cubans should have some constitutional rights to trial because former President Carter invited the flotilla to America.